Fracking In Pennsylvania—The Truth Behind The Politics
Originally published on Forbes.com on October 27, 2024
Both sides of the political debate, and the rest of the world, will continue to need drilling and fracking for natural gas, including in Pennsylvania.
Fracking is a big deal in Pennsylvania (Pa), one of seven swing states in the upcoming U.S. election. Fracking is a key to almost 60% of the state’s electricity (Figure 1). Surprisingly, nuclear is at 32% (remember 3-mile island meltdown in 1979) while coal is only 5% and other renewables, including wind and solar, are a dismal 2.3%.
Why is fracking a key? A big majority of oil and gas wells are fracked, and gas wells in Pennsylvania are no exception. If wells aren’t fracked, they don’t make enough gas production to be commercially profitable. If fracking were banned, gas wells would not be drilled in Pa.
If Fracking Were Banned
First, gas supplies would decrease over time, and a huge investment would need to be made quickly in nuclear, solar or wind to try to compensate. Although challenging, it has been done, and the state of South Australia did it in eight years, when they replaced their one and only coal-fired power plant by mostly wind farms that now provide over 70% of continuous electricity per year. Natural gas plays a minor role.
Second, jobs would be lost from the gas industry. Direct and indirect jobs related to gas are estimated to be around 100,000 in Pa. Whether they could be replaced by nuclear and renewable energies is controversial. But the mood of the state over the next 10 years or so, would likely be despairing if fracking were stopped abruptly.
Third, revenue to the state and to private landholders would decline. Revenue to landholders comes via an initial leasing fee, followed by royalties paid regularly on the volume of gas produced. Revenues to the state come via leasing fees and taxes. Pennsylvania’s taxes from gas production rose to almost $180 million in 2023. But that’s not all—in the same year, the state collected $174 million from an annual impact fee paid to counties to compensate for repairs to infrastructure caused by drilling activities.
In all, the state has collected an estimated $1 billion since 2008 when the governor allowed drilling on state land, a controversial decision when shale gas was taking off at the time. It should be noted here that a study of oil-rich states, such as Texas, has shown that local tax revenue to counties from oil wells would not be replaceable by renewables like wind and solar. We can assume that this position would also apply to a gas-rich state such as Pa. So, Pa would have to diversify its economy quickly to prepare for lower revenues if fracking were banned.
The Argument For Banning Fracking
Fracking, like a bogeyman, has been accused of many things. First, polluting surface aquifers that provide drinking water for landholders or their animals. Second, for deleterious effects on health of people who live near a gas well. Third, for overusing fracking water from aquifers that ranchers depend on in semi-desert regions of the country, such as New Mexico. Fourth, for inducing earthquakes in Oklahoma and West Texas. And last, for adding greenhouse gases (GHG) to the atmosphere that cause global warming. Let’s look into these assertions.
The bogeyman actually originated in Pennsylvania with a gas explosion near a farmhouse caused by gas leaking from a gas well. But this was not due to fracking. It was caused by gas leaking through well casing and up to the surface, a well integrity problem.
Accusations of deleterious effects on human health have been investigated and found to be unproven.
There is some truth that water sourced for fracking from aquifers leads to overuse. In a typical shale gas well, huge volumes of water are injected in about 40 separate fracking jobs spaced along a 2-mile horizontal well. The total water would rise up to 40 feet if it were contained above the grassed area of a football stadium. Obviously this could be a problem in semi-desert regions of the Southwest U.S. But not in green growing Pennsylvania, where most frac water is recycled and not discarded in disposal wells.
Fracking does not cause earthquakes directly. But after fracking, a well produces gas or oil and sometimes a lot of water. When this wastewater is disposed deep underground, it can pressure up natural faults that exist and cause earthquakes. This has been a problem In Oklahoma, in West Texas, and in New Mexico, but the problem has been controlled by limiting the rate and volumes of wastewater disposed in this manner.
Each of these problems has been examined in depth elsewhere. The end of the investigation is that fracking has not been proven to be the cause of any of these problems. Fracking is not the bogeyman that has been pushed and misrepresented by zealous groups of anti-frackers.
But there is one exception: global warming and climate change caused by greenhouse gases. This is key to the political debate in Pennsylvania.
Does Fracking Cause Climate Change
Fracking does not cause climate change directly. But fracking is complicit because production of gas in Pennsylvania followed by burning of gas in power plants or homes and businesses does contribute to global warming. Recall that the oil and gas industry is responsible for about 50% of global warming.
Fracking in Pennsylvania is viewed by some as just another bogeyman. If so, it is a smaller bogeyman than perceived because of a single argument, which goes like this. Global warming leads to direct climate change effects such as Arctic ice melting and glaciers retreating. But global warming is not responsible for extreme weather events such as droughts, wildfires, floodings and hurricanes1. This is not well understood but is important because these weather extremes are the events that carry the most severe consequences to civilization (think of the awful current drought in Sudan). The crux of the matter is that these extreme weather events have not worsened in the past 40-50 years when global warming has risen by 1.0 C degrees, so the oil and gas industry cannot be held responsible for current extreme weather events.
Therefore, extreme weather events are not an argument to discontinue fracking and production of natural gas in Pennsylvania. The other argument to not discontinue fracking is that gas burns cleaner than oil or coal: generating only about half of GHG emissions. This leads to a perceptive idea that natural gas can be viewed as a bridge fuel in the energy transition, a fuel that will be needed to shore up energy usage in power plants, manufacturing, and heating for buildings. Gas will be needed, the idea goes, until renewables are ready to replace coal-fired power plants and internal combustion engines that run on gasoline or diesel derived from oil. These replacements are already happening and will probably accelerate during the energy transition.
Fracking should not be banned in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else in the U.S. In truth, coal-fired power plants are going away because burning coal is such a dirty process that worsens asthma conditions and contributes to global warming. Oil demand will peak by roughly 2030 according to BP, and will decline from about 80% now to 30%-50% by 2050 depending on the uptake of EVs. The decline in oil demand will dampen the need to continue drilling oil wells.
But the world will continue to need gas drilling and fracking, also in Pennsylvania, so that when natural gas is converted to LNG (liquified natural gas) it will provide a cleaner form of electricity and energy security—and the golden age of LNG will continue.
References
1 Steven Koonin, Unsettled, BenBella Books, Dallas, Texas, 2021.